Resources to Draw Upon

TIP 1: LEARN USEFUL AND NEW THINGS

 

Successful first-line supervisors typically are avid learners and look for ideas and techniques to improve their performance. Hughes Consulting has identified selected resources that will provide new or seasoned supervisors valuable advice. Some of these resources have been around a long time. Others are relatively new. Neither should be overlooked. Each tool kit offered for a fee also offers recommendations on appropriate written materials and internet sites that can be helpful to you, the first-line supervisor. Here are some of the books that you should have as resources in your library. We will begin with five books.

 

Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, The One Minute Manager, Berkley Books, NY, 1983, 111 pages.

Almost 25 years ago this book was a runaway best seller. Is the material outdated? Nope! Is it relevant today? Yep! The authors share three secrets to help you increase your effectiveness. They are: One Minute Goals; One Minute Praising; and One Minute Reprimands. They also tell you why these techniques work. The book is a fast and entertaining read and gives you, the first-line supervisor, three simple and understandable steps you can take your next day at work to be more successful. Arm yourself with this practical knowledge and practice the techniques suggested.

 

Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton, How Full is Your Bucket? Gallup Press, New York, NY, 2004, 127 pages.

This book is for all of us who have been around and experienced a negative boss, fellow-worker, customer or acquaintance. Compelling statistics are presented on how negativity reduces productivity, increases turnover, scares off customers and can even cause serious injury. Five simple strategies are offered for increasing positive emotions in your work and personal life. As a first-line supervisor, you will be convinced how important it is for you to bring positive behavior and actions to your team and your customers. If we were tasked to create an entrance test for becoming a supervisor, there would be a number of key questions asked based on the facts and techniques presented in this easy to digest book. As a supervisor, bring positive behavior and comments to your work team and environment. Those who interact with you will be glad you do.

 

Madelyn Burley-Allen, Listening. The Forgotten Skill. John Wiley & Sons (2nd Edition), 1995, New York, NY. 194 pp.

This book allows you to learn how to be an active and effective listener. It is easy to understand and is organized so you can teach yourself. It deals with such important topics as how you got to be the listener you are, what listening can do for you, the barriers to listening, how to get others to listen to you and other related topics. Each chapter has self-tests and the answers to the questions posed. It is a must read for a supervisor who desires to significantly strengthen his or her communication skills.

 

Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People. Revised Ed. Pocket Books, New York, NY. 1981,276 pages.

This classic was written in 1936, during the “Great Depression” before World War II. Since your people skills are essential to being a successful supervisor, the advice in this vintage resource still has great value. Here are the four parts of the book that will make you smile as well as give you sage counsel: Part One-Fundamental Techniques in Handling People; Part Two-Six Ways to Get People to Like You; Part Three-How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking; and Part Four-Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment. This is a must read to insure you, as a new or seasoned first-line supervisor, give priority attention to the wide range of skills needed to get people to trust you, respect you, listen to you and follow your direction.

 

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. Simon and Schuster, New York, NY. 1999, 271 pages.

This book has relevance for all supervisory and management levels. It is a somewhat sophisticated read but should not scare you. It requires you to contemplate and stay attentive to understand the concepts presented. One of its greatest values is providing any organization interested in its health, a useful measuring stick and survey approach. It also provides some empirical evidence on the benefits of being a healthy organization and what 12 conditions need to exist to be one. In addition, it focuses on the four things that great managers do: select for talent; define the right outcomes; focus on strengths; and find the right fit. The information in this book also will help prepare new and seasoned first-line supervisors for assuming higher management positions if they want to be upward mobile.

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Transition to Supervisor

TIP 2: THINK ABOUT WHAT WILL MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL AS A SUPERVISOR

 

Many people become first-line supervisors because they performed extremely well in the position directly below that of supervisor. The organization feels this performance will be replicated at the next level and the good worker is selected as a supervisor.  Often people become supervisors without giving much thought to how the supervisory job differs from those of the workers or team members they lead or why they want to be a supervisor. In addition and, regretfully, far too many people also become a first-line supervisor with little or no training in supervisory techniques or a clear understanding of what is expected of them.

 

Before you prepare for advancement to first-line supervisor or actually take this position, it might be informative for you to complete the assessment tool presented in the Free Stuff section of this website. It is Resource 1 – Why Do You Want to be a Supervisor? This tool should provide you with insights regarding the degree to which your reasons for being a supervisor are compatible with what an organization typically wants from its first-line supervisors.

 

We believe that a healthy mindset for someone becoming a first-line supervisor would have the following characteristics:

• You like people and enjoy assisting team members and customers get what they want and need.
• You get turned on tackling and solving people and work activity problems.
• You like to be in a position to lead and set a direction and then get there.
• You are not afraid of what you do not know and feel comfortable asking your peers, staff and boss for help.
• You are not afraid to make a mistake and when you take a wrong turn, you learn from it.
• You are energized and motivated about becoming a supervisor and being the best one possible.
• You like to learn new things and then apply what you learn at work.
• You are comfortable being visibly accountable for your performance and that of your work team.
• You are anxious to do the best job possible as a supervisor before you worry or get interested in a higher management position.
• You are able to get others to trust and respect you.
• You like to listen to others and give them praise.

Hopefully, these characteristics describe you in large measure as you assume your role as first-line supervisor and begin making this transition.

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Roles and Expectations

TIP 3 – RECOGNIZE THERE IS A ROLE CHANGE WHEN YOU BECOME A FIRST-LINE SUPERVISOR

 

Is being a supervisor or team leader different than being a worker or team member? Yes! Is there a big difference? Yes! What are the major differences?

 

First, as a first-line supervisor and now a person in the “middle”, you now have more and different needs to meet. Second, the skills and knowledge that served you well as a worker or team member most likely will require expansion as you learn and then practice the art and science of “supervision.” Third, you are likely to face and need to overcome various obstacles in making the transition from worker to first-line supervisor.

One way to clarify you new roles is to ask these questions to the different people you work for and with:

 

Questions for Boss

“What are the top five to six expectations you have of me as a supervisor? What work tasks do you want me to give priority attention to and why are these important to you?”

 

Questions for Other Successful Supervisors

“What do you spend your time doing that has led to you being seen as a good boss and successful? What things do you avoid doing that would detract from your success?”

 

Questions for Your Staff

“What tasks do you feel I should focus on to insure you can be a great worker and a star at work? What things would turn you off if I behaved that way as your supervisor?”

 

Questions for Your Good Customers

“What things do I need to do to insure we are meeting your needs as our customer? Is there anything I should start doing or stop doing?”

 

The responses you receive should provide you with clarity on what will be expected from you in your role as a supervisor.

 

If we could suggest just three things you should focus upon that will help you be successful in the role of first-line supervisor, they are:

1. Insure you and your team generate the highest quality work possible.
2. Make certain each of your team members feel valued and important.
3. Insure your customers feel you and your team always will go the extra mile.

We understand you will also check your job description and the criteria set forth in the performance appraisal system for supervisors to see what they say about roles, responsibilities and expectations.  However, typically, this information is general, sometimes vague or provides a long list of work tasks or performance standards that may not represent the real world for a supervisor. Talk to the people suggested and you will get a clearer picture of what you need to concentrate upon to be successful in your new role.

 

Finally, you need to ask yourself if you want to be a great first-line supervisor. If your answer is a resounding yes, then it would be helpful for you to know what one acts and feels like. Our model for a great first-line supervisor is based on research, our own experiences as a supervisor and being supervised and what we have been told in the many training events conducted by people transitioning to supervisor and learning their craft.
Our great first-line supervisor has six essential characteristics or clusters of behavior. They are:

1. They successfully meet the important needs of the organization for which they work; the team members they direct; and the customers they serve.
2. They are noted for their high ethical behavior and work ethic.
3. They show signs of developing or already have key leadership talents, particularly a clear vision of where they want to take their team, a willingness to empower team members to solve problems and make decisions, and almost relentless persistence in moving toward their vision.
4. They strongly believe in and practice the Golden Rule.  Simply put, they treat people the way most of us desire to be treated.
5. They are committed to life-long learning and are constantly looking for ways to improve themselves, team members and the work of the team.
6. People trust them.

If you want to be a great first-line supervisor, here is a model to which you can aspire. It is readily apparent that the standards for being a great first-line supervisor are high. But with hard work and commitment, you can be this person in your world of work. Go for it!

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Motivation

TIP 4 – YOU ARE THE KEY FOR INSURING THE WORK SETTING IS MOTIVATING

 

Good bosses turn team members on and energize them. Bad bosses make people unhappy and negative at work. As a supervisor you do not motivate your team members, you provide them an opportunity for each of them to motivate themselves. Sometimes you are successful in keeping employees engaged and satisfied with their work and sometimes you are not

 

Various training, such as Tool Kit 2, will provide you with insight regarding the different motivators that help keep workers engaged and build high job satisfaction. But, in the real world, there are different motivators for your various staff and different strokes for different folks.

 

One way to discover the high priority motivators for your various team members is to ask them. To help you in this task, here are some possible questions to ask to learn more about what really motivates each worker:

 

“What three work tasks do you really enjoy doing. Why do you like doing them?”

“What work tasks do you dread, if any, and why?

“On a 1 to 10 scale how would you rate your job satisfaction (10 Terrific, 5 OK, 0 Awful)? If we could do three things to increase your job satisfaction, what would you like us to do? Likewise, if there are things that create frustration for you, what, specifically, do we need to change?”

 

If you want to add a resource to your library of knowledge on motivation, you should borrow or obtain one or both of the following publications:

 

Anne Bruce and James S. Pepitone, Motivating Employees. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999, 176 pages.

 

Ann Bruce, Building a High Morale Workplace. McGraw-Hill, New York, 2003, 167 pages.

 

As you think about various ways to get your team members engaged and motivated by their work, remember to give them:

• Frequent recognition for the good work done.
• Freedom in and control over how they do their jobs and accomplish the results you want from them.
• Ongoing opportunities to grow professionally and also personally.
• A sense of what they do is important to your organization and your customers.
• Diversified, challenging and interesting work where this is possible.
• A feeling they are strongly appreciated and valued.

These are universal motivators that will energize most employees, staff and team members.
Also, for various organizations “making work fun” sounds unprofessional, silly and in conflict with the purpose of work. We all know work is serious business. Really? As a new or seasoned first-line supervisor, we hope you reject this obsolete mindset.

 

You, as a supervisor, are the key in making work fun for your team. If you do not lead this charge and embrace this concept, it will not happen.

 

If you are interested in and sincere about starting to create a fun working environment for yourself and your staff, here are a first, few steps you can take:

• Ask each team member what two things you can do as their supervisor to increase their job satisfaction. Do at least one of them!
• Use a team meeting to identify and agree upon three fun things to do, at work and after work, over the next three months. Do them!
• At another team meeting, brainstorm and list existing policies, rules and regulations that drive team member’s nuts and get in the way of people doing their jobs. Do what needs to be done to get rid of the rule that gets the top vote as being most stupid and an unnecessary monkey on everyone’s back.
• At least once a month, publicly recognize each team member for one thing each of them has done well at work.

Obtain and review at least one book of the many written on making work fun or do a search on the internet regarding this topic and read what people say. Based on this research and your new knowledge as a potential “work fun master”, develop and implement a plan for making a fun work environment the reality for you and your team.

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Training and Development

TIP 5 – BECOME A BETTER TEACHER, TRAINER, MENTOR AND COACH

 

An important responsibility of a first-line supervisor is insuring staff members have the skills to do their jobs well. There are many different approaches and techniques for training and developing staff. One of the most successful and least costly is being a “coach.”

 

Here are eight tools you can and should utilize when you are in your coaching role as a supervisor:

• Create an individual performance plan, including goals, for a team member. The plan should list the measurable results you want for the worker and the activities that must take place to achieve these goals.
• Develop a way to measure performance progress that is acceptable to you and the team member.
• Measure progress on a regular basis and keep score.
• Give the staff member timely feedback on how well he or she is doing in progressing toward the goals set. The feedback should include positives as well as shortfalls in performance.
• Devote one-on-one tutoring time with the worker sharing your experiences, thoughts and ideas on how to successfully achieve the goals set and overcome problems that emerge.
• Delegate and give the staff person a reasonable amount of control over what they do and freedom in doing their job.
• Find the right motivators for the worker and use them to move them toward the results desired.
• Use a wide-range of training activities, where appropriate, to enhance the knowledge and skill of the team member that will contribute to the performance level specified.
  

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Supervisory Styles

TIP 6 – BE FLEXIBLE IN ADAPTING YOUR STYLE TO THE SITUATIONS YOU FACE

 

Do you believe in the old saying of “different strokes for different folks?” We hope you said “yes” to this question. If you go through Tool Kit #5 on Supervisory Styles, you will receive some insight on your inclinations regarding your interaction (aka personality) style, supervisory style and conflict management style. You will also obtain information on how to adapt your styles to the needs and preferences of the people that you direct and lead.

 

Is it important to adapt your approach to the needs and preferences of individual team members? Absolutely, assuming you want to be successful. You can, as a supervisor, adopt the approach of “my way or the highway.” If you do, however, make certain you have good relations with the HR department since you can expect high turnover, employees with low morale or other less than positive conditions.

 

The key point is to be successful as a supervisor, you need to identify and know what works and does not work for each of your team members. You need to be flexible in how you lead and supervise, interact communicate, motivate and train or coach. As a supervisor, one size does not fit all.

 

In terms of your interaction style, are you a Thinker, Commander, Seller or Cooperator or a little of some of these? How about your staff, what interaction styles do each of them demonstrate? Do you know how to style flex so each employee feels you and she or he is on the same wave length?

 

In terms of your supervisory style, are you a Director, Coach, Cheerleader or Delegator? Are you able to choose a style that works best with someone highly motivated but not fully skilled for the job yet or someone with high motivation and job skills?

 

In dealing with conflict, are you aware when you should collaborate, compromise, accommodate, avoid or compete.

 

In terms of motivation, do you know what motivates or turns off each of your workers? Your customers? Do you act on this knowledge to help keep people engaged and experiencing high job satisfaction?

 

Your work setting may have Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y employees – people from different generations. Are you aware of the values and preferences of workers born since 1980, between 1960 and 1980, prior to 1960? Do you use this information in directing them, training them, communicating with them and creating motivational opportunities for them?

 

The point of asking these questions is to demonstrate that, as a first-line supervisor, you need to be flexible in dealing with different members of your team. The more you treat them and interact with them in a way pleasing to them, the more successful you become as a supervisor. Please give your current flexibility some thought and what you might be able to do your “different strokes for different folks” are successful.

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Building a Team

TIP 7 – SIGNS TO WATCH FOR WHICH SAY THE TEAM BUILDING PROCESS IS NOT WORKING

 

Before the Industrial Revolution, in the trades there was a master craftsman and various apprentices. The master craftsman was in control and carefully laid out the work, instructed on how to do the work inspected the work, corrected mistakes and so on. Apprenticing took years. The supervisory system was strongly top/down. However, this also was the beginning of team building since the master craftsman saw his role as a teacher and had a clear vision of what the finished product should and would look like.

 

As a supervisor, new or old, do you know what to look for that might suggest that teamwork is not occurring and the team building process is encountering problems? Here are ten (10) conditions that might exist in a group of workers that suggest that teamwork and team building is in trouble:

1. A team member or members complaining about something at work and being negative.
2. A team member criticizing another staff member and attacking them from a communication standpoint.
3. A team member seeking to control or dominate some facet of work or problem-solving.
4. A team member who has withdrawn and does not participate in problem-solving or work activities requiring a group.
5. A team member who does not do their job responsibly and either have marginal work quality or productivity or both.
6. A team member who makes decisions independently and unilaterally without consulting anyone else or assessing their impact on others.
7. A team member who has handled his or her work and does not help out another team member who still has a heavy workload.
8. A team member who misses or is late for many team meetings.
9. A team member who resists learning new things or embracing changes being made.
10. A team member who is seen as “me” oriented and sees the world as what is best for him or her.

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Performance Management

TIP 8 – MAKE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL THE THIRD AND FINAL STEP OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

 

Most supervisors dread the year-end performance appraisal process, including the completion of the forms and meeting with the employee and request for them to sign off.  Many see it as an add-on to their workload and not that relevant to managing their team of workers The emphasis is on rating employee performance, sometimes using broad and general indicators and other times employing job-related standards, some of which are quantifiable.

 

However, if you, the supervisor do just a few simple things, you can convert the performance rating system into a performance management process that gives you a viable management too over worker behavior. These are the three steps you take:

 

Step 1
Plan the Performance You Want at the Beginning of Each Year

 

Meet with your employee and using the performance dimensions now in your rating form decide on the performance expectations that make sense. If the performance dimensions on the rating form are general, make them more specific and job-related. If they are usable in their current form, reaffirm this. In this meeting, seek to identify the high priority work responsibilities you want the staff member to address and how you will determine how well they are meeting these responsibilities. You are not bound by any pre-printed form if that is how your rating system works. You can easily add a sheet which summarizes the key job responsibilities and the standards you will use to determine if they are done in an outstanding, good, ok or not so ok manner. If the communications are two-way in this meeting, the employee will have a say in determining what is important and how performance is measured. Make certain that whatever is discussed and agreed upon is in writing and available to you and your team member.

 

Step 2
Provide Regular Feedback on Performance, Particularly Positive Behaviors Occurring

 

A reasonable rule of thumb to consider is providing your team members five positives on work performance for every negative, if any. If you are going to manage performance, your staff needs to know how well they are doing on an ongoing basis. This means you need comprehensive, accurate and timely data on their actual performance. You want to avoid the situation where the only time you, as a supervisor, communicate with an employee on their performance is when there is a problem. Deliver as much good news as you can. In addition, since your workers now understand their performance expectations and the standards against which they will be judged (and this is in writing), they can manage their own performance. If you are not communicating with a staff member on their performance every one to two weeks, you are not providing sufficient performance feedback. If most of your feedback is negative versus positive, you are failing to use the inexpensive motivator called recognition.

 

Step 3
Evaluate Performance at Year End

 

Formal performance evaluation is the final step of the performance management process. For this to be successful, you should ask your team member to do a self-evaluation prior to meeting with you (we are not talking about a written evaluation). The appraisal conference should be about sharing views on performance, again focusing on positives as well as improvement needs. The written evaluation should occur after the appraisal conference. Assuming you have been giving feedback throughout the year, there should be no surprises when the time comes to do the year-end appraisal.

 

Another good resource for you on the topic of performance management is the book: Robert Bacal, Performance Management, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999, 208 pp.

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Leadership

TIP 9 – DETERMINE WHAT LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS YOU ARE BLESSED WITH AND USE THEM

 

It seems like everyone in the Universe is writing or speaking or even emailing about leadership. There are many similar and different views on how successful leaders behave. We suggest you acquire Resource 6 – How You Stack Up as a Leader. It is a free item on the successfulsupervisor.com website. Do the self-assessment. Have some people who work with and for you do the assessment on you as well. Review the results. Identify the top three to five leadership behaviors you now possess. Look actively for ways to use these behaviors more in your work environment.

 

Here are the 17 leadership behaviors you will be evaluating when you download Resource 6.

1. Have clear philosophy, vision or set of beliefs regarding direction of work team or organization.
2. Have a long-term orientation in terms of months or years to attain goals versus a short time period.
3. Willing to experiment and take risks and use mistakes as a teachable learning experience.
4. Share influence/power/authority with team members, peers and others and committed to empowerment.
5. Participative in how work planned and controlled and allow team members to have a big say in how things shall be done.
6. Open to new ideas that will improve quality, productivity and customer service.
7. Understand that you cannot work in isolation and must work in coordination with other units.
8. Have the trust of others and truly respect people and caring.
9. Train, develop and mentor others and see this as an important part of my role.
10. Have patience and willing to talk things through.
11. Flexible about people and how things should be.
12. Have high self-esteem and confidence in self.
13. Aware of my strengths and weaknesses.
14. Upbeat, positive and optimistic about things.
15. Ambitious and driven to succeed.
16. Persistent and have no quit in me.
17. Intelligent but not in the genius category.

Remember, play to your strengths versus spending significant time trying to change or eliminating your weaknesses.

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Customer Service

TIP 10– INSURE YOUR TEAM PRACTICES THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

 

As a first-line supervisor, one of your responsibilities is to insure your team understands and meets the needs of the customers you serve. There are Ten Commandments of Customer Service. Here are five of them that you and your team should practice:

 

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Creative Thinking

TIP 11– TAKE STEPS TO HELP INSURE CREATIVITY IS STIMULATED IN YOUR WORK SETTING

 

Is creative thinking valued, fostered and rewarded in your work environment? Is your answer “yes,” wonderful! If your answer is “no,” then you need to look at the conditions which now exist. As a new first-line supervisor, here are five steps you can take to help allow creative thinking to flourish:

 

Insure that when an idea surfaces from a team member, it is not judged too quickly. There is a tendency at work to look first at the possible negatives of a proposed change or solution. Avoid the inclination to focus on what some feel is wrong with an idea. Instead concentrate, initially, on what is good about the idea and how it might help improve things.

 

In looking at possible solutions to a problem, look for multiple solutions and not just the “best” one. There often are many options for improving something. Train yourself and your staff to look for several ways to correct a problem or address an issue.

 

Allocate the time for creative thinking and problem-solving. Make this a permanent part of any staff meeting. Insure the team and each team member understands that finding better ways to do things is everyone’s responsibility and there is time set aside to do this on a regular basis.

 

Keep track of the improvements you and your team are making in how you do your business. Develop a score card and make it visible to all. List the improvements made and when and what is being worked on now.

 

Celebrate your successes in solving problems. When you make a change that works and improves services or operations, toast this achievement publicly with a donut, coffee, pizza, fresh fruit party. Involve all the people who contributed to this success.

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Meeting Management

TIP 12– DEVELOP AND ENFORCE PROTOCOLS FOR THE BEHAVIOR OF STAFF IN MEETINGS

 

There typically are many meetings in most organizations. Many are not productive and a waste of time. There are many reasons for this unfortunate condition. Meetings, however, can be very useful in problem solving. Research indicates that in most cases group think is better than individual think. If you as a supervisor want to get the most out of group think in a meeting, you need to establish some simple protocols or guidelines that all participants understand and agree to follow. You, as the meeting facilitator, need to be willing to enforce these guidelines so meeting participants behave the correct way.

 

Here are five participant behavior guidelines that will help you and your staff get more out of your meetings:

 

Avoid being negative or prematurely negative regarding someone else’s idea or comment. No “put downs” will be allowed.

 

Insure every meeting participant is given the opportunity to express his or her view on a topic being covered. As the facilitator of the meeting it is your job to give each person in attendance air time. Be persuasive in asking them their views on an issue.

 

No one can interrupt the person expressing their point of view. The person facilitating the meeting will determine who speaks next.

 

Everyone’s point of view has the same weight and value initially in the discussion and will be respected.

 

Each participant will devote their energy to the meeting and the discussions which occur. Each person shall be actively engaged and actively listen.

 

Tool Kit 6 on team building presents a variety of guidelines for managing your meetings and getting more out of group problem solving. A classic book which is an excellent resource is Michael Doyle and David Straus, How to Make Meetings Work. Berkley Publishing Group, 1982, New York, NY, 299 pp.

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Improving Operations

TIP 13– LOOK FOR WAYS TO WORK SMARTER AND NOT HARDER

 

You and your team are in the enviable position of having the knowledge and experience to look at what you do and assess if there is a better way of doing the work. If you check with each team member you probably will discover most if not all have a pet peeve about work tasks and how they are done that might lead to an improvement in operations and services.

 

As a supervisor, most organizations will expect you to actively look for ways to streamline operations, improve quality and or service, increase productivity, and reduce costs and so on.

 

Here are four questions you can ask yourself and your team to help identify possible ways to improve the way your work is done and service provided.

 

What is to be Done?  Why?

WHAT is task designed to do?  WHY is this important?  Every work task should have a reason for doing that is still valid. It should contribute to quality, productivity, service, cost control, etc. If it does not make a contribution and the reason for doing it is obsolete, it becomes a candidate for elimination. Sometimes half of the improvements made to operations come from no longer doing things. The reasons for doing them are no longer valid or important.

 

Where and When is the Work to be Done?  Why?

Always check out where (the place) and when (the time) work tasks are done and the reasons for doing them in that location and/or time period. You may find out there now are better places and/or times to do various work tasks. Where and when we do things becomes outmoded just like the reasons for doing a work task at all.

 

Who is to do the Work?  Why?

Does the work require significant skill?  Modest skill?  Are people skills needed?  Technical skills?  High levels of accuracy? Do we have the right person at the right skill and pay level doing the work?

 

How is the Work to be Performed?  Why?

In attempting to answer the HOW of a job, we now consider all the possible methods of doing it.  Obviously, some methods will be far better than others.  For example, common problems on how work is performed include the following:

 

Excessive Detail in Work Procedures

  -  Step duplicated elsewhere
  -  Too complex
  -  Completely unnecessary

 

Improper Sequence

  -  Unnecessary reviews
  -  Unnecessary travel time
  -  Duplication of effort

 

Poor Coordination

  -  Units unfamiliar with each other's work

 

Poor Information Control

  -  Information not used
  -  Too much time to record data
  -  Routed to too many people
  -  Don't collect valuable information which is used
  -  Difficult to read

 

Outmoded Equipment

  -  Doesn't work well
  -  Causes mistakes
  -  Not safe

 

Misused Facilities

  -  Crowded
  -  Noisy
  -  Poor movement to various locations

 

It is recommended that you periodically subject different work tasks that are performed by your team to these four questions. You will find ways to work smarter and not harder and in many cases it will not cost you much to make these changes.

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Career Development

TIP 14– DEVELOP A COVERING LETTER THAT SELLS

 

“Cover" letters are what this phrase implies.  They typically plop on the resume with no value added.  Given the bland content of many cover letters, they could be replaced by a grocery bag or the cellophane wrapping from your morning newspaper.  Please remind yourself that little time normally is spent by employers reviewing each resume.  In addition, the first item a resume reviewer encounters is your cover letter.  You should seize the opportunity the cover letter provides to grab the attention of the employer and impress this person.  The three purposes of your cover letter should be:

• To demonstrate quickly that you have some sense of the kind of person they are looking to hire (based on the research you have done).
• To show that your background, experiences and past successes fit some or most of their needs and you understand them.
• To impress them with the fact you are interested in their specific position or job and organization and not just any job opportunity in the galaxy.

An impressive cover letter should be about a page in length and look something like the hypothetical one presented on the next page. Please utilize your creativity in formatting your initial sales pitch.  It could be the only look a busy employer may give you!

Illustrative Cover Letter

for Office Supervisor

Dear Mr. Brady:

 

I reviewed your ad in the San Jose Mercury for Office Supervisor. Based on your written profile for this position and my subsequent conversation with Sue Study on your staff, it appears you need to hire someone who:

 

Can handle "power" typing using the Mac and generate attractive and error free proposals and reports.

 

Has excellent telephone call handling and customer service skills

 

Can prioritize work and meet important deadlines and use independent judgment in making these decisions.

 

Able to manage the quality and productivity of the two part-time clerks

 

As my resume will indicate in greater detail, my skills and work experience, initially, seem to match up with your high priority needs.  For example:

 

I have worked with the Mac for four years, am fluent in Word and type over 85 words per minute.  In my current job, I produce proposals over 20 pages long and reports over 50 pages.  Perhaps my resume will provide you with an example of the attractiveness of my word processing.

 

I now spend over three hours each day dealing with the clients and prospects of the four attorneys for which I work.  Reference checks would validate my customer service orientation.  Also, you could call me at my office and make your own assessment of how well I do on the phone.

 

My current bosses trust me to schedule their appointments and to make routine changes in legal documents without further review.  Perhaps this helps document my ability to make independent decisions.

 

Presently I supervise a legal assistant and his workload. If you talked with him he would describe me as a person who gives him clear expectations and follows up on his work without looking over his shoulder.

 

Sincerely yours,

Sandra Moersch

 

If you are interested in honing your job search skills further, you might be interest in the book entitled Putting Your Best Foot Forward! by Richard A. Hughes. It is available by contacting Hughes Consulting.

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